Then another man came over and says to me, "You know of course that it's a crime to criticize a federal judge?" and I asked why that would be. He says, "Because they can't fight back." Hmmm.

I then said, "You know of course I refer to the man as an idiot?" and he says, "Of course."

Then he asked, "What happened to the shareholders' lawyer, anyway?" and I replied, "I don't know but I sure didn't think much of his courtroom performance. The Company lawyers ate his lunch, and then some." And I added "I heard better arguments from the steelworkers I was sitting with in the courtroom. Anyway he disappeared. There was no appeal."

And then this man says to me, "Why do you think a lawyer disappears?" and, eagerly awaiting his reply, I said I wouldn't know.

So he says, "Either because their clients stop paying or somebody else pays them to disappear. And (he says); ask the lawyer the name of the party who paid him $600,000 to disappear."

Wow, so I jumped on it: "Who did?" But he just smiled and said, "I called one of the top lawyers in the New York and asked if the offering and taking $600,000 from the other side to stop an action could be considered a bribe."

And then the man walked away. I said, "Don't leave me hanging here!" but he was off talking to other people.

And later I was introduced to a man called "Mr. Peru" and I was called, "Bill Cara, a political reporter from Canada" and I wondered what was that all about.

And the man says, "Can you imagine that in Peru when I went in to stake my claims they couldn't read?" So, I said, "You mean they couldn't read English" and he says, "No. They couldn't read or write. They were illiterate. The whole village. So I went to the capital city to see what could be done, and they told me I had to go back to the mountains to talk to these people."

And so he brought with him Mr. Peru, who seems to be communicating well enough to move the project forward. But my friend says, "They may be totally illiterate, but somebody put the notion in their head that my mining permit had to be for ten years. Mr. Peru told them I don't do ten years."

The world is definitely getting smaller. And crazier.